Roaming Rangeley 2022

Rangeley cruising the Appalachian Trail in Virginia

Roaming Rangeley Spring 2022

Rangeley and I (Gary) took off from Phoenix on Monday April 18^th to begin our 2,000 mile journey east. Rangeley continues to be an amazing traveler. We drove a little more than 400 miles per day as we joined the caravan of truckers heading east on Interstate 40. Pretty easy navigating, picked up the 40 in Arizona, drove 1,700 miles east till we got on I81 north and that is where we are, just off the 81 in Wytheville, Virginia. Very different from our previous travels where we avoided the Interstates, just because we wanted to see all the small towns. This time we just wanted to get to Virginia. We hit quite a bit of rain, which Rangeley loved, water to play in. Good thing Elizabeth threw in 2 dog towels for our trip. Many of the Love’s Truck stops have small dog parks, so I could eat lunch outside while Rangeley cruised around without me having to pay super close attention.

The reason I picked southwest Virginia was there is a short stretch of the Appalachian Trail that I have only done during my 2014 through hike. Saturday afternoon we headed to the hills to fill in part of that gap. Rangeley had never backpacked so I was curious how he would do. Our first day we did 10 miles and set up my tent by a beautiful stream. Rangeley was in heaven. He showed no signs of hiking 10 miles and was in constant motion playing with sticks and going in the water. All the hiking in Phoenix paid off. The leaves are not out yet in the mountains and we were in the forest so everything is brown and gray. I put a bell on Rangeley so I could always hear him. He is terrific about staying close by. When it was getting close to sunset I tied him up to force him to rest and dry out. I keep him on leash while hiking so he has to move slowly and doesn’t expend too much energy. Every stop I let him loose though. That night in the tent he was great. He did move around but never barked or tried to get out. At one point I heard an animal outside and thought he had gotten out. Amazingly he was still sleeping right next to me. I am not sure what kind of animal it was, but it was fairly good size. I did hang our food to protect it from bears.

In the morning it was probably upper 40s. Rangeley was shivering a bit till he could go out and romp around again. Of course he is in the cold water in no time. So much for being cold. That day we did 17 miles to a hostel where we had reserved a private room. I was a bit worried as hostels have much more common areas than the privacy of a hotel room, but again he was fine. Little things like leaving him in the room while I went down the hall to shower. He was good.

Day 3 we walked 20 miles south and called the hostel for a ride back to our car. I had thought we may do that section with an overnight in the tent so had not made reservations and the hostel was full, so we drove to a hotel. Rangeley was amazing. He was very good on lead (if there wasn’t a stream nearby). He was great with all of the other hikers.

From where we are staying it is about an hours drive south to Grayson Highlands State Park. This is where the wild ponies are while hiking the Appalachian Trail. Rangeley and I headed out yesterday in very windy and chilly temperatures. It had rained and gotten much colder the day before. On the way up to Grayson Highlands we did a quick detour to a parking lot for the AT. Sure enough a thru hiker came through. I young lady (30s) who is a professional comedian in her real life. She enjoyed a cold drink and some snacks that that we had brought to share, we took her garbage and she was back in the woods heading to Maine.

It was 39 when we reached the Highlands – so named because it is almost entirely over 4,500 feet, which is high for the east. The winds were blowing 20+ mph. I was cold to start with and even considered doing a shorter hike than the 12 miles I had planned. Once we got into the trees it was much nicer as we were out of the wind.

At one point we passed a 65 year old female thru hiker. She started with her daughter but the daughter had gotten off trail so she was now hiking solo. The woman was having an amazing journey and is so glad she had been able to hike. She has lost some weight and is off all her medications. She shared with me many personal feelings about many different topics. She then stopped and basically stated that one of the things the trail brings out, is how the thru hiker community doesn’t judge so you feel comfortable sharing your inner thoughts, even with a total stranger.

We saw many through hikers but when we were 10 miles in, had still not seen any ponies. The AT makes a big loop in this area and there is a shortcut to create the loop we did. Once we got back to the AT we started seeing ponies everywhere. I have been in this area twice before and was able to walk right up to the ponies. With Rangeley we kept our distance. Rangeley seemed to be fine, as did the ponies, but not worth scaring the ponies by getting too close. We completed our hike at 3:30 and it had warmed up to 49 degrees. On our hike we varied in elevation from a low of 4,383’ to a high of 5,502’.

Friday April 29, 2022

Today Rangeley and I headed back to the AT to do a 10 mile out and back hike. It was cloudy and cool, so perfect for hiking. We drove about 20 miles, the last 3 on a dirt road to arrive at a parking lot right by a beautiful river (Laurel Creek). Rangeley was in heaven from the start. I brought 2 containers of food snacks and about 15 ice cold sodas to place on the trail for the northbound thru hikers as well as a big trash bag so the hikers could drop off any trash they were carrying. As Rangeley and I headed south we saw about 10 hikers heading north. I kept Rangeley on lead so he would walk with me and not put on lots of extra miles. Just short of our turn around spot – a shelter I had stayed at in 2014, there was another stream for R to play in. It was less than ½ mile to the shelter from there so he stayed off lead and was very good the rest of the way.

When we arrived at the shelter there was a 24 year old with a 2.5” thick book. He is studying for the LSAT test in August. He plans to attend law school next fall and is studying all summer as he hikes north. We chatted for a good 30 minutes and then he asked if he could walk with us the 5 miles back north to our car. We continued or great conversation the whole way back as the miles went quickly. Rangeley had been moving around the shelter the entire time, so I left him off lead on the way back. He basically stayed between Picasso and me the whole time. The young man got the trail name Picasso because a mouse nibbled his ear at a shelter and another hiker came up with Picasso for a name. He was corrected that it was Van Gogh who had a partial ear, but the name Picasso stuck. That is the way trail names come about.

When we arrived back at the road crossing more than half of the food was gone, which was great. There were still 3 sodas left so Picasso drank one and carried the other two north. I have a feeling they did not make it very far. He really wanted the left over ice as well, but there were leaves and dirt in it so he passed. He thought long and hard about it though.

Another very fun day on the AT. Tomorrow we pack up and drive a little over an hour north to Roanoke to pick up Elizabeth and phase 2 of this journey will begin. We plan to go to the AT in that area as well as visit a high school friend of my parents then head further north to Vermont with many “to be determined” stops along the way.

Thanks for reading along.

Live simply, love well, breathe, appreciate life.